Grünfeld Defense: Russian Variation

The Russian Variation, also called the Russian System, is 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3, a line of the Grünfeld Defense in which White brings the queen out early instead of playing the Exchange Variation, 4.cxd5.

The idea

The queen adds pressure on Black's central outpost on d5 and practically forces 5...dxc4. After 6.Qxc4 White has the bigger share of the centre and usually plays 7.e4. The price is that the white queen is often exposed once Black's queenside play gets going in the middlegame.

Main lines

After 5...dxc4 6.Qxc4 O-O 7.e4 Black has several main options:

• 7...a6, the Hungarian Variation, championed by Peter Leko.
• 7...Bg4 8.Be3 Nfd7, the Smyslov Variation, named after Vasily Smyslov. It was a topical line from the 1950s to the mid-1970s.
• 7...Na6, the Prins Variation, the idea of Lodewijk Prins. Garry Kasparov favoured it in several of his world championship matches against Anatoly Karpov.
• 7...Nc6, the Byrne Variation, common in recent games. White most often plays 8.Be2, and 8...e5! 9.d5 Nd4 10.Nxd4 exd4 11.Qxd4 gives up a pawn to develop Black's pieces and create active counterplay.
• 7...c6 and 7...b6 are also played.

The numbers

On Lichess White wins 50.3% of the 196,548 games and Black 43.3%. White leads 51.6% to 42.6% between 1800 and 2199, and 48.2% to 44.3% from 2200 up. Masters over the board draw more than half their games: in 5,347 games 54.2% were drawn, White won 28.6% and Black 17.2%.